Biography

Helen Dunmore

Helen Dunmore is the author of 11 books, including THE GREATCOAT; THE BETRAYAL, a New York Times Editors' Choice; THE SIEGE, a bestseller and finalist for the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award; and A SPELL OF WINTER, winner of the Orange Prize

Helen Dunmore

Books by Helen Dunmore

Daniel Branwell has survived the First World War and returned to the small fishing town where he was born. As he works on the land, struggling to make a living in the aftermath of war, he is drawn deeper and deeper into the traumas of the past and memories of his dearest friend and his first love. Above all, as the drama unfolds, Daniel is haunted by the terrible, unforeseen consequences of a lie.

In the winter of 1952, Isabel Carey, a lonely housewife who has recently relocated to the Yorkshire countryside with her new husband Philip, discovers an old RAF greatcoat hidden in the back of a cupboard of her house. While sleeping under the coat for warmth that night, she is visited by a young RAF pilot named Alec and begins an affair with him. She is unprepared, however, to face the truth of who Alec really is.

Internationally acclaimed author Helen Dunmore follows her bestselling novel, THE SIEGE, with a riveting and emotionally absorbing portrait of postwar Soviet Russia, a world of violence and terror where the severest acts of betrayal can come from the most trusted allies.

The Siege of Leningrad was one of the key events of the twentieth century. In 1941, Hitler’s armies encircled Leningrad, confidently expecting to crush any resistance and enter the city. But Leningrad held out, in spite of almost unbelievable suffering. This novel focuses on the Levin family and their friends, trapped inside the besieged city. It’s a novel about war as experienced by ordinary people, and a profoundly moving celebration of love, life and survival.

Disturbing love and underlying horror govern the hermetic world of this Gothic novel set in early twentieth-century England. Catherine and Rob Allen, siblings two years apart, grow up in a world of shameful secrets. Their mother abandons them when they are young, and their father dies after being institutionalized. The children live with their grandfather in a crumbling country estate accompanied by their dependable maid, Kate, and a malicious tutor, Miss Gallagher. Together they forge a passionate refuge for themselves while the world outside moves to the brink of war.

A terrifyingly atmospheric ghost story by the Orange-prize-winning Helen Dunmore.
In the summer of 1954, newly wed Isabel Carey arrives in a Yorkshire town with her husband Philip. As a GP he spends much of his time working, while Isabel tries hard to adjust to the realities of married life. Life is not easy: she feels out-of-place and constantly judged by the people around her, so she spends much of her time alone.

One cold winter night, Isabel finds an old RAF greatcoat in the back of a cupboard that she uses to help keep warm. Once wrapped in the coat she is beset by dreams. And not long afterwards, while her husband is out, she is startled to hear a knock at her window, and to meet for the first time the intense gaze of a young Air Force pilot, handsome, blond and blue-eyed, staring in at her from outside.

His name is Alec, and his powerfully haunting presence both disturbs and excites Isabel. Her initial alarm soon fades, and they begin a delicious affair. But nothing could have prepared her for the truth about Alec's life, nor the impact it will have on her own marriage.